


Knotting Hill

by Saucery



Category: Notting Hill (1999), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: ACCURATE TITLE IS ACCURATE, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, DEREK HALE IS A WEREWOLF MOVIE STAR, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Humor, Knotting, M/M, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Paparazzi, Potions, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Slow Build, Stiles Sells Books, Supernatural Elements, WHEN FAKE BOYFRIENDS BECOME REAL, Werewolves, Whoops! There Go My Pants, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had to be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knotting Hill

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry. I did consider a more sensible title for this story - such as _Parchment and Ink_ , for example, or _Like Vellum Loves Ink_ \- but I just couldn't be sensible, this time around. (Or ever. Heh.) Enjoy the madness!

* * *

 

At first, Stiles thinks it's a guy on the run from the police, or maybe the subject of a secret government experiment gone rogue. (Not that all the conspiracy theories that fill Stiles's shelves have been influencing him, or anything.)

The guy's _huge_ , like, secret-government-experiment huge, broad-shouldered and tall and visibly muscular even in his loose-fitting hoodie. The way he slouches into the store and skulks behind the bookshelves, glancing furtively at the windows, doesn't disprove either one of Stiles's theories. He's wearing sunglasses, too, which - given that it's two hours past sunset - adds another level of freaky to the general freakiness of his appearance.

But Stiles, being Stiles, is used to the freaky. His best friend's a werewolf and his dad's a retired cop that stubbornly keeps consulting at gory murder scenes whose photos Stiles invariably finds strewn across the dining-table whenever he visits, so… this stranger doesn't scare him. Much.

Plus, he owns a bookshop that looks more like the decrepit library of some dusty, creepy, cobwebbed haunted house. He gets his daily dose of freaky, right here.

He clears his throat and says, in his best customer-service voice: "'Scuse me, sir, but are you on the run?"

Wait. That wasn't what he meant to -

"What," rumbles the man, turning slowly to face him, and whoa, his voice isn't just rough like gravel; it's rough like bullet-casings _on_ gravel. Bullet-casings from an AK-47. "Did you say?"

"B-because if you are," Stiles continues, his voice totally not trembling, at all, "then, uh, carry on? My wayward son?" The guy takes a step toward him, and Stiles shrinks back against the counter. "By which I mean, I will definitely not interfere with your running away. To a land far, far away. From here. As far away as you can get, preferably."

"I'm not on the run," the dude says, which is the most unconvincing lie _ever_ , because he glances at the door as he says it.

"Yeah, right. So you're here for a book?"

"I'm here for several books."

"Uh-huh. You do know this is a bookshop for all things magical and mystical, right? And that the only people that ever come in here - not that I don't love 'em all, but still - are little old ladies interested in the tarot, Willow wannabes interested in witchcraft and prepubescent boys interested in card tricks?"

"I need information on manticores."

"Manticores." Stiles stares. "Right."

"Quickly."

"Quick information on manticores. The quick brown manticore jumped over the the lazy nymph. Are you kidding me?"

And suddenly, the guy's all up in Stiles's space, radiating the sort of heat you'd usually expect from a radiator. He's stubbled, but pale and clammy beneath the stubble, like he's not well. Or like he's on drugs. Shit. "Find. Me. Everything. On manticores. _Now_."

"You couldn't, I dunno, Google it, or something? I bet Wikipedia has a real handy page on manticores. On most things, actually."

"If you can't help me, then get the owner."

"Um," says Stiles, because he's way past being intimidated by irate customers threatening to complain to the higher-ups. "I am the owner?"

The last thing Stiles expects is to get picked up by his collar and _slammed_ against the wall, so hard that his ears ring and his vision sparks and the back of his head explodes in pain.

"Fucking _ow_! That's aggravated assault, buddy! Punishable by the law!"

"Where. Is. Deaton."

That clears Stiles's pain-fuzzy mind right up. "What?" Since when do random criminals know Deaton?

"What have you done with him." The guy's nostrils flare; his grip tightens on Stiles's collar until Stiles can hardly breathe. "Have you hurt him."

"I… no! 'Course not! He - he left me the shop, said he - h-had to go - "

"Go where."

"I - I don't know, he said it was a, um, bicentennial family reunion that might take thirty years, which doesn't make any _sense_ , I know, but Mr. Deaton was always kind of weird, anyway." That's as much as Stiles can say without saying that his ex-employer is a three-hundred-year-old witch. God, Stiles's life. Werewolves, witches and insane, potentially murderous druggies with personal space issues.

"Fuck," says the guy, succinctly, and grows visibly paler. "He's not here."

"No, he's - "

"And - that - manti - " The man chokes.

"Are… Are you okay? You look like you're gonna pass out," Stiles says, and as if on cue, the guy… passes out.

Like, literally just falls forward onto Stiles, who, because he isn't used to having tall muscle-men fall on top of him (not that he hasn't fantasized about it), yelps and leaps aside and lets the man fall. The guy's head hits the floor with a wince-worthy bang, knocking his sunglasses right off.

Stiles stands there, heart thudding, gaping down at a face whose likeness is, at this very moment, plastered on the billboard across the street. And on the side of the bus trundling down that street. And on every screen in every movie theater across the city.

This isn't a secret government experiment gone rogue, _or_ an ex-con.

"Holy shit," Stiles breathes, resisting the temptation to nudge the body with his foot, just to see if it's real and not a hologram or a hallucination. "It's _Derek Hale_."


End file.
